I did it!
The start of THE RUN.
Where I dumped Brooke off at. :)
2 janvier 2010 (Day 124)
I woke up way to early and took a shower in our lovely hotel. Brooke’s alarm went off at 7am, and repeatedly went off. Mine went off at 7:30, I turned it off, and woke up again at 8. We checked out and caught the bus to the church, thinking we were late. We weren’t late, we were actually early! We had an opening song and a short opening thought and thank you before there was a short break to have orange juice and pain au chocolat.
We then got to go to two different workshop/lectures talking about the scripture theme D&C 56:26-28. I went to a great lecture about choosing good causes to spend our time on and how we need to do our best possible to help the cause of Zion. The second lecture I went to was okay, but it was more just the history of the scripture and a slight analysis. We took a picture with the whole group and Brooke grabbed our lunches and we left to go back to the train station. At the bus stop this great old man stopped Brooke and started talking to her about her acne. Brooke already has a complex about her face, so having this random stranger tell her that her face looked horrible, that he had awful acne once, and that she needed to go take ten 200 euro baths in warm sea water. I thought it was hilarious, though I don’t think Brooke found it as funny as I did.
We had lunch out in the sunshine on the stairs of the train station (gare). The wind blew my apple out of my bag so Brooke went zooming after it because it was bouncing down the stairs. I just laughed and ate it anyway. We saw some other people that were at the YSA activity and talked to them until our trains came. On the train to Monaco I finished Harry Potter 2 in French and began to plan trips with siblings. I had some of my Bueno candy bar, changed, and then hopped off the train, ready to run across an entire country!
First we walked around at a winter market and then tried to make the plan (the shortest spot possible since I could barely walk anyway). Brooke didn’t have shoes and someone needed to watch the bag of stuff, so I left her at the market and went off to find the border of France. I ran past some of the casinos and some other neat looking stuff, but I naturally got lost. The stares were great; I was in Monaco, a super rich chic place running around in shorts with a camera in one hand and a cell phone in the other. All those people in their poofy marshmallow shiny black coats thought I was nuts. Some people yelled some stuff at me, but I’m not sure what they said. Since I was lost I tried calling Brooke, but she didn’t answer, so I decided to keep running around. I found a church that had a map and so I ran to the border from there! I did it, along with going more than half way the long way across Monaco. I was going to finish the rounds and just do a loop, but I had already spent a lot of time, it was dark and I had no map, and couldn’t get in touch with Brooke and I had told her I would be done in less than an hour. I turned around and ran by the Monte Carlo Casino and what looked like at least several hundred tourists. They were quite annoying. I found Brooke down at the marche. I’m really out of shape people. I bought a nutella banana crepe for dinner because they were cheaper at this marche then in Nantes. It was incredible. I forgot how in love with those crepes I am. I am definitely going to need to eat them more often (but they are around 5 euros in Nantes…eek!).
We waited for a bus to Nice, where we were sleeping, until we realized we missed the last bus. We went to the train station and got tickets (80 cents more than the bus). Brooke was quite peeved that we missed the bus, so she waited outside for over an hour just to be sure that I was right, that we had missed the last bus (although she’d already bought her ticket. She said she wanted to so that she would know for sure). I just chilled in the train station.
The train ride was quick (about 20 minutes) and then we took the tram up to by the hostel. We called them to pick us up (they do a free pick up) and forty five minutes later we were still waiting, Brooke’s phone out of minutes, freezing, and my phone lost. We were quite grumpy. A nice British boy from the hostel (most of the hostel workers were British…odd) picked us up. luckily he was nice and British, otherwise I am sure Brooke would have bit off his head because she was fuming by now. We luckily had the hostel room to ourselves so we dumped out my bag and still didn’t see my phone. I had naturally put it somewhere I wouldn’t lose it, in my inside coat pocket. I was just glad I found it and then went to bed after going to check my email on the hostel’s free computers. There was quite the party going on in the hostel.
